Heart as black as coffee
by chloemcg
Summary: One-shot: After being released from prison, lost soul Diego Armando (or Godot) goes to visit Mia's grave. In his darkest hour amidst the heartache and pain as he cries out for his dearly beloved, Phoenix Wright also comes to the grave too. Can the two ex-rivals push aside their differences and start mending each other's broken hearts?


**Disclaimer: I don't own anyone from the Ace attorney series, especially not Phoenix Wright or Godot (AKA Diego Armando). The rights to them belong to Capcom and nobody else.**

 **Heart as black as coffee**

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Under the darkness of the black night, gravity had forced the dark gray clouds to slowly pull themselves away from the moon, allowing shreds of Ivory moonlight to break through and light up the whole world and bathe the street in a brilliant luminous glow; squeaking bats flapped their wings as their silhouetted forms flew across the sky.

Chilly slivers of wind brushed through the paper thin air, carrying and crispy and dead autumn leaves away into midair and scattering them across the road.

The naked tree branches creaked softly as the breeze also cradled them with its cold winds.

The street lamps gently let off kindles of ember light, but it was no compare to the natural moonlight...naturally no sane person would be out at such a late hour. The streets were lonely on this dark and gloomy night, there was not a soul whom dared venture out on this eve in the cities of Los Angeles —well, that wasn't quite true.

There was someone.

This one lone man strolled through the side path, one hand holding a bouquet of white lilies and the other grasping a cup of coffee which let off a gentle steam that rose high into the air and let off a light and comforting scent.

In the darkness, the metallic visor mask this man wore on his face cut through the pitch blackness with streaks of bright red beams. His shaggy hair was almost as white as the moon in the sky above and his appearance was somewhat unkempt and his goatee was pretty bushy. Each breath he exhumed from his lips took form of a thick cool fog that, like the warm steam of his coffee, evaporated into thin air.

Ex-attorney/ex-prosecutor, Diego Armando, also known as Godot, had never felt more lonesome than he did on this cruel night of October. He had just been released from prison and he had quit the prosecutor's office the second he was able to get into contact with them, and he knew he couldn't bare to be a lawyer again as it could bring back some painful memories.

Since then he had become a wandering lost spirit, nobody knew what to think of him -especially with his past of murdering a woman and him wearing a unique platinum metallic mask.

Why was Halloween so dark a night for him, where was he going?

Only he knew the answers to those questions...

The lone man currently wore his normal attire consisting of a dark jungle green suit with a red necktie and, on top of it, he sported a dark brown trench coat and a soft woolly crimson scarf was tightly wrapped around his neck. His footsteps were heavy and stiff as he clenched his teeth through the harsh cold winds that blew by.

His mind was a blank slate...his thoughts were empty...his soul felt like it had taken a beating...his heart bled as memories started to tear an old wound open...

However, before he even realised it, he had stopped right in front of a gloomy black gateway that had the words "graveyard" written in grim and gothic-style calligraphy that looked ebbed together as if to make the word more grim than it was supposed to.

It, at least, meant that he had finally reached his destination.

This graveyard.

Godot swallowed through a tight throat. He solely focused on his task and pushed his way through the gates which were heavier than he had initially thought and he wandered into the depressing place. He cringed at the high-pitched screech that screamed in his eardrums the gates made as they gave way and turned inwards before his weight and he squeezed in through the narrow gap.

The lush yet shortly-trimmed green grass crackled and crunched under his shoes and his metallic facial mask lit up against the darkness of the night, illuminating his path alongside the gentle streams of moonlight. Godot felt as if he made the slowest strides ever whilst he had made a beeline right towards a particular grave site which was set up against a hilltop and stood beneath the thin yet weepy branches of a gigantic willow tree.

The trip dragged on and on, yet after trekking up the hill, the former attorney finally reached it. He reached the gravestone he had longed to see —he reached his goal.

The ex-lawyer softly crouched down in front of the gravestone and laid the bouquet down on the upturned dirt that was at the foot of the tombstone, he stood up on and balanced on one knee. The epitaph before him read in the form of a golden etching on the stone- _"Here lies Mia Fey, a sister, and a lawyer with a golden heart" -_ and the man couldn't help but chuckle softly yet bitterly under his breath when reading that line because it was the perfect representation of Mia...

The metal-masked former lawyer took a quick swig of his coffee and stared longingly at the gravestone. His mind was clouded in a thick cloud of thoughts, most of them rethinking past choices and different scenarios of how everything would have played out should Mia not have died. Yet he couldn't help but clench his teeth hard to fight back tears when he thought of how he wasn't there for her, he should have lived happily with her! And it was all because of that witch -Dahlia Hawthorne- that he wasn't there when she needed him most...

Mia _was_ his life, but Dahlia (and some wicked man called Redd White) took that all away from him...

The prosecutor's shoulders bunched up and his heart froze in his chest when he suddenly felt something abruptly land on his shoulder. He jerked quick in shock, whirling his gaze over his shoulder to see who it was to dare interrupt his grieving. Alas his angered look quickly morphed into a look of plain shock and surprise.

He hadn't expected to see _him_ out here.

"T-Trite...?"

That's right —stood behind the mourning prosecutor was Phoenix Wright.

The spiky-haired legendary attorney used to be Mia's protégé and close friend. Mia had, apparently, originally defended the annoying pest in a trail when he had been accused of the murder of some dude who used to have been going out with his girlfriend, _Dolly_ , whom was actually Dahlia Hawthorne using the fake identity of Melissa Foster at the time.

Godot took a moment to regain his composure and calm down and then cocked his head in confusion at the young man, he somehow managed to look like a confused puppy. He really hadn't expected Phoenix to come and visit Mia's grave yet he knew he shouldn't have been surprised to see him there either, she _was_ his mentor after all.

He was about to take another sip of his coffee but quickly found that he was so startled by the blue-suited lawyer's presence that he had let his cup slip from his grasp it had fallen to the floor, staining the formally dry patch of upturned earth with soggy coffee.

His face fallen into a downright sulk, he wanted to finish that coffee so badly too...

He just decided to ask the obvious question. It would probably pry his mind away from the haunting thoughts that plagued his mind, his thickly-accented voice carried an obvious trace of annoyance behind it.

"What are you doing here, Trite?"

Phoenix only stared at the man wearing the metal mask, his dark wiry brows knitted together to paint a look of confusion on his face. He had guessed that the older man already knew the reasons why he would show up here and tonight...but he couldn't help but take note of the surly tone in the ex lawyer's thickly Spanish-accented voice.

"Isn't it obvious?" He asked rhetorically.

Godot didn't say much to respond, he just furrowed his brow deeper.

The two men didn't say another word to each other for a while. The only other noise that was made was the high-pitched whistle of the bone-chilling winds and the rather loud creaking and crunching of the trees naked branches.

Seconds ticked by into minutes but it felt like an eternity...a so _very_ awkward eternity.

Suddenly Phoenix awkwardly cleared his throat, snuffing out the quiet once and for all. He stared at the tombstone fondly and managed to make the corners of his lips turn upwards and smiled a forced yet half-hearted smile. He started to make his attempt at light conversation and kept his softening gaze down on the stone slab.

"Looks like they've been taking real good care of her grave. Still looks brand new!"

The spiky-haired lawyer's attempt of making light conversation was unfortunately ignored, though, since he didn't even get so much as a response. The silence between them became way more awkward and made the very atmosphere stiffen from how empty it was. The only noise between them now was the sound of a few crickets chirping...it just made everything all the more maddeningly awkward.

A painfully long few seconds passed before Phoenix inhaled the cool nighttime air into his nostrils and feeling that sort of chill in his lungs felt kind of soothing for the usual acceleration he puts his body through in court. He decided to try again and brighten the mood a little by changing the subject.

"I...I heard that Maya's doing well with her Spirit medium training,"

The spiky-haired ace attorney could see the older man's posture tense up when Mia's baby sister was mentioned. He noticed how Godot's shoulders risen upwards and bunched up against his neck in a way that would suggest that his muscles tighten, he couldn't help but take a mental note that the ex lawyer inhaled a sharp gasp of breath.

"...Oh, really now..? Th-That's nice.."

The attorney flinched when he started to realise that perhaps bringing up Maya was a bit of a mistake. Despite the spiky-haired attorney obviously hitting a raw nerve, though, Godot went unsettlingly quiet. He breathed through bared clenched teeth and he lowered his head to try and calm himself before he made a foolish and irrational mistake in his dear Mia's presence. While the masked man remained down on his knees in a scrunched position, seething silently through gnashed teeth, he found himself wanting to seriously beat up Phoenix.

Something in him started to break out, he didn't know whether it came from since he was normally such a calm and collected person...

Godot felt his larynx starting to constrict and he was forced to swallow continuously to loosen his tightening throat. He swiftly jumped to his feet, pivoted on his feet, grabbed fistfuls of the rather disgruntled ace attorney's jacket and pulled him so close towards him that their noses were just _inches_ apart from each other.

"H-Hey! What the-!" Phoenix was so surprised and caught off-guard that his response to all of this had become entangled in his throat like a fly tangled helplessly inside a spiders web. His wiry brows shot up and his jet black spiky hair bristled slightly against the slight moisture that started to collect in the cold autumn night air.

The dark red lights illuminating from Godot's mask burned into Phoenix's terrified face as he felt the scowl behind the mask the older man wore, the lawyer in blue lost all capability of speech and just listened to what the man had to say.

"Trite! Don't even think about coming here and try to understand my pain, you don't understand because you can't even begin to!"

The attorney was still dumbfounded by what was happening, his mind was racing so much that he could hardly comprehend what was going on and let everything he was hearing sink in properly. He could hardly get a word in before the Spanish-accented lost ex-attorney started to bark at him with the bridge of his nose creased in pure rage.

"That WITCH —Dahlia— _poisoned_ me! She stole five years from me, made me miss out on so much! She got off scot-free for her crimes for a long time without punishment, el maligno demonio!" His visor glinted darkly despite the ominous red lights beaming through the blackness of night, putting a small emphasis on his rage.

"B-But that was until Mia locked her up!"

Phoenix looked at Godot with an unreadable expression with his deep blue eyes hard and steely. It was very hard to get a describable expression from the blue-suited lawyer's face now and the two men looked hard at one another. Then the ex-lawyer, in a fury-fuelled frenzy, let go of Phoenix suddenly. The force of him being dropped made the spiky-haired attorney stumble aimlessly for a moment or two before he regained his footing.

All the while, Godot dug around in his pocket and quickly and swiftly pulled his hand out of it again. His fingers had been curled as he held something tightly in his fist and he thrust his arm forward and shoved his clenched hand in front of the dumbfounded lawyer. Godot's face hurt due to how much he was forcing his frown into the lowest of frowns possible. He clenched his teeth in pain and his whole body was trembling so much, he couldn't stop.

"I...I...I...!" He struggled, uncurling his fingers and presenting a tiny object in the palm of his hand.

Godot finally managed to shift his glare on to Phoenix, streaks of red liquid starting to stream down his cheeks from behind his mask, "I could have been married to her right now, Phoenix! I should have been there for her when she needed me, b-but she was killed when she was all by her lonesome...AND ITS ALL THE FAULT OF THAT HAWTHORNE WITCH!"

The bright lights on his mask intensified into a blinding light that made the Ace attorney have to squint his eyes from the brightness. He used his arm as a shield, despite that, Phoenix felt a pang of raw guilt hit him right in the heart.

He had known that the coffee-aficionado had been hopelessly head-over-heels with Mia and he knew that she felt the very same way, he saw it in her eyes on the rare occasions she spoke about having a boyfriend when she was his "chief"...but he had never known that Godot had planned to propose or anything...

Phoenix could only watch as the lost soul in front of him crumbled right before his eyes. Godot -or Diego- fell to his knees and smashed his fist down on the ground, cringing from the pain of his new injury and the pain of his severe heartache, and the man broke down in front of him and he started to whimper and sob with his face buried in his other hand.

The spiky-haired lawyer sighed throatily with his deep blue eyes pooling with regret.

He didn't know how it felt to lose a loved one like that. Godot loved the bones of Mia and on this night, he apparently proposed marriage to her and they became engaged and pledged their lives to each other...that must have left a wound deeper than a whole canyon. His shoulders even sagged and his eyes shimmered with guilt. He, himself, loved Mia like an older sister and she was his guiding light through the darkness of uncertainty when they stood in court together...

Phoenix had nothing to say.

What could he say?

Then he started to recall something that Godot had said back when they both stood in court as arch rivals and it actually was enough to make Phoenix start to seriously wonder about it.

 _"Once again, a woman dies because of you..."_

 _"Don't tell me you've forgotten...? It was only two years ago after all...when the last woman died because of you. And do you know who that was? It was Maya Fey's sister! That's right! Mia Fey!"_

Phoenix couldn't help but start to wonder, was it really true? Could he really have been there, could he have arrived sooner and changed the outcome of that night? To save Mia when Diego could not? He had asked himself that question so many times but he always drew up a blank -certainly he hadn't known about the circumstances surrounding her death but maybe he could have done something!

Maybe it really was all his fault...maybe he did let Mia die because he wasn't able to protect his dear friend and mentor better...

"I...I'm so sorry, Mr. Armando...I really am..." He muttered, a single tear starting to fall and trail down his cheek.

A long silence passed until Godot finally responded with his voice low and quiet, so quiet that it could barely be heard above the gentle high pitched whistling of the wind. The man looked down at the diamond ring he held in the palm of his hand, more red tears flowing ceaselessly down his face. His back was stiff and he seemed as though he wanted for the ground to swallow him up and take him away from this depressing atmosphere.

"It...It wasn't your fault, Trite..."

Phoenix stared at the man's crouched from behind, shock and sympathy shining in his teary eyes.

He knew that Godot had done wrong by killing the spirit-possessed Misty Fey but he had done that out of love for Mia, and to save Maya...

The ace attorney soon found the strength and willpower to move and lifted himself off of the ground...however he couldn't stand or straighten himself out completely yet, so he settled for dragging himself forwards and up the hill before the strong gusts of frigid winds blew him away. He settled down in front of the precious stone slab that stood high and poked out of the ground.

He seated himself alongside Godot and the two stared silently at Mia's tombstone.

Godot hung his head.

"I'm know you did whatever you could, kid, so don't beat yourself up for it, I shouldn't have taken my frustrations out on you...again...so please forgive me..."

The tone behind his words were sincere and heartfelt, but his demeanour seemed both downcast and depressed —the slouch in his posture explained that much. The two lawyers (both ex and current) did nothing but sit on the hill and look at the coffee-soaked grave with gloomy and droopy expressions on each of their faces.

The only sound between them was the soft blowing of the wind and the creaking of the branches above.

Phoenix started to think as he stared a bit harder at Mia's grave, he looked at it as if there was a microscopic patch of dirt that he was trying to catch a glimpse of on there. He somehow managed to smirk despite the lonesome atmosphere and he shook his head a little, it was something that hardly went unnoticed by Godot.

"What's so funny?" He asked, somewhat annoyed to have another interruption.

Phoenix shrugged as best he could, still smiling sadly, "Look at us. If she were here Mia would probably smack us both for being such sentimental saps like this, don't you think so?"

The White-haired ex attorney said nothing in response as he glanced down at his own hands, looking at the engagement ring that sat in his palms. He started to recall when Mia would be a bit of a neat-freak and he would normally call her "kitten" as a nickname that annoyed her beyond all reason when he first started using it. She was so cute when she got cross. More flashbacks of all the good times he had with Mia flooded his mind like a tidal wave, their first kiss making it to the forefront of his mind.

He recalled it vividly.

He remembered standing beneath a tall tree, the two of them sat next to each other on a park bench. He remembered being lost in the beautiful sight of the sun setting beyond the horizon and he could perfectly memorise the contrasting colours that painted the skies that evening -peach orange blended with a pretty shade of salmon pink. He remembered turning to face the young woman with her beautiful chestnut hair getting caught against in the beautiful beams of sunlight, a tender smile graced her lips. He remembered the warmth of her soft hand touching his, he even remembered her leaning towards him (since he was far too afraid to make the first move) and he mostly remembered the feeling of her beautiful lips brushing his own.

Her lips was as warm as a fire in the middle of a blizzard, and he felt as though that was the best moment of his whole life...except for the day he first tasted coffee.

The man couldn't help but chuckle in amusement under his breath, recalling his love when she was still full of life. He may have missed Mia like crazy but he had almost completely forgotten all the fun times they had together, like their first date at a local bistro cafe and their time spent together as colleagues at Grossbergs' law offices.

Godot silently stared at Mia's student, a warm smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

 _Ha...! Thanks for reminding me of the good times, Wright..._

"Hey, Mr. Armando?" Phoenix suddenly spoke up with a gentle smile when he started to climb to his feet. He extended his arm out to him and started offering his hand out towards the coffee-addicted former attorney, "You wanna come back to the office with me?"

The masked man was astonished and caught off-guard with his words temporarily caught in his throat. He hadn't expected that question at all...least of all the spiky-haired man whom he caused so much turmoil. He could tell from the way Phoenix's eyes that shimmered with goodwill to show that he wasn't joking. He softly placed the engagement ring down on the upturned earth, beside the bouquet from earlier, and Godot took the spiky-haired lawyer's hand.

He suddenly found himself smiling as he felt the strain of his leg muscles whilst the younger man pulled up to his feet, helping him steady on his own two feet after having knelt down for awhile.

"I'd like that...besides, you owe me a new cup of coffee."

The two former rivals walked away from the graveyard to head back to Wright and co. Law offices but they were completely oblivious to the fact that a transparent and ghostly figure watched the both of them leave with tears in her eyes. She swept a strand of her long chestnut brown locks out of her face and tucked it behind her ear as she watched as her friend and her lover walked away. Pride swelled within Mia and she smiled softly, a sparkling tear of pride trickling down her transparent face.

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 **A/N: HAPPY LATE NEW YEAR, FANFICTION, I'M BACK!**

 **I'm SOOOO supremely sorry that this took so long to put up. I had been busy with other things and there was a lot of Writer's block and I was busy with collage and my health, and I am so sorry I haven't been active for awhile.** **This had been in the works since October last year, and I feel so bad for not finishing this sooner.**

 **I am sorry about my lack of activity lately.**

 **Anyways, I created this one-shot about Phoenix and Godot because I realised that he needed a bit of attention and so this came to be, and there's some friendly fluff in here too. :) I hope I got the characters right and that this is good enough.**

 **I am so happy to have uploaded this and got it done.**

 **Sorry again for the wait, everyone.**

 **-Chloemcg**


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